Winter Reunion (7 page)

She looked up at him and fought the urge to brush away a fragile cobweb drifting across the deep waves of his hair. A tender move that would be entirely too
intimate and wifely, past boundaries she had no intention of crossing. Ever.

“Did they say why?”

“Apparently my mother grew generous in her old age. She funded one of their youth trips to the Twin Cities last year and donated money for their choir robes the year before.” If he'd said that Vivian had flown to the moon, he couldn't have sounded more mystified by her generosity. “So now they want to return the favor.”

“That's sweet.” She hesitated. “I know you and your parents didn't get along so well when you were in high school. And…I know they weren't fair. But maybe they changed, later. Or maybe they had a good and giving side that you didn't see.”

“Possibly.” He hitched his good shoulder. “But I'd still rather pay the youth group and keep things square.”

She lifted her hands in frustration. “Then send them an anonymous donation, in care of the church. I'm sure they can put it to good use.”

He nodded. “I'll do that.”

At the weariness in his voice, she looked up at the pallor of his skin and the fine lines of tension bracketing his mouth. If he was in pain she knew he'd never admit it, even if it robbed him of sleep and made each day a struggle.

Whatever military code of honor he subscribed to, it allowed no admission of weakness of any kind.

“How is your shoulder?”

“Good.”

No surprise there. “And how are things at the motel?”

“Fine.”

“Clean? Comfortable? Quiet?”

“If I'm not in a tent in some desert, it's all good.”

“That's not exactly a ringing endorsement. How are the midnight trains?”

That earned a wry laugh. “Right on time. Every night.”

“And the four a.m.?”

His half smile faded. “Ditto.”

After being there over a week, she could only imagine how it felt to be shaken awake at all hours by fifty-car trains rumbling past, a few dozen yards from the motel. Especially when he needed the healing balm of deep, restful sleep.

“So when are you moving into the cottage?”

“As soon as I get time. It works just fine as a storage shed, now.”

“In other words, it's packed to the rafters with odds and ends.” She flashed a bright smile at a lanky teenager carrying a garbage can bristling with a full load of scrap wood. “Hey, Ryan. Would you kids be up for another project this weekend? It's the guest cottage behind Sloane House—”

“That isn't necessary,” Dev cut in sharply. “But thanks anyway.”

The sandy-haired boy glanced uncertainly between them as they stared each other down, then he shrugged and continued on his way.

“You don't have to be stubborn about it, just on principle,” Beth hissed. “I was only trying to help.”

Dev waited until the boy disappeared out the front door. “Thanks, but I don't
need
help.”

“The kids could clear that cottage out in an
hour.
”

“But I already paid for the full week at the motel, and I'm in no hurry to move at any rate.” Dev's narrowed eyes fixed on hers. “I don't remember you being such a take-charge kind of gal.”

“I'm sure you don't remember anything at all about me.” The words stumbled from her lips, unbidden, driven by the raw emotions that she'd tried to hide since Devlin had come to town. “Look,” she added tersely. “I live alone, and I run my own business. And I just want everything to go just as smoothly during our brief partnership. That's a reasonable expectation, isn't it?”

He nodded, eyeing her as if she were some roadside bomb that might explode any second.

Around them, there was a bustle of activity. The banter and laughter of teenagers. Dev stood still as granite with a faraway look in his eyes, oblivious for a long moment.

He finally sighed. “You're right.”

She'd been ready to argue another point, and his quiet words took her aback.

A chorus of whoops and hollers rose from the four corners of the building, followed by the sound of thundering feet as a herd of teenagers ran down the stairs to meet a delivery girl standing in the doorway with a stack of pizza boxes in her arms.

“That didn't take long.” The tense set of his jaw relaxed, probably in relief at the interruption. “Excuse me—I need to pay her. Want some pizza?”

Beth shook her head.

Pulling his wallet from a back pocket, he strode to the delivery girl and smiled as he handed her three twenties, then he helped her lay out the pizza boxes on a makeshift table set up between a couple of sawhorses.

It was the first time in years that she'd seen him offer such an unguarded smile without the filter of the emotional baggage he carried.

It was a smile that deepened the laugh lines fanning from the corners of his eyes and the deep creases bracketing his mouth, and her heart kicked in an extra beat. She'd been so entranced by his deep dimples and his innate charisma years ago. He'd drawn her like no one else ever had…and she'd fallen completely, irrevocably in love…

Well, maybe not as irrevocably as she'd once thought. She closed her eyes, willing that image to disappear.

Despite everything that had happened before and after he'd walked out of her life, he still had the power to affect her as no one else ever had, and that was so unfair.

At a tug on her sleeve, she opened her eyes and found a teen with a high, bouncy ponytail staring at her with a worried expression.

“Are you okay, Ms. Carrigan? You look kinda pale. Are you dizzy? Maybe you should sit down.”

Dizzy…pale…

Beth could believe it, but sitting down wasn't going to help. What she needed right now was
distance.
“I'm fine. You'd probably better get over there and grab some more pizza before the boys wolf it down.”

“If you're sure…” The girl hesitated, then ran over to join her friends who were digging into the pizza boxes.

Maura had been right when she'd said it was a shame that Beth had to deal with Dev all over again…but not for the reasons she'd imagined.

Dev had shattered Beth's life long ago, far past repairing, but there was a small part of her that still hadn't let him go. Maybe it
was
better to tell him the truth. She would find the right time…one of these days. She'd gather her courage, and once it was over, she could finally, completely erase him from her heart.

A wave of anxiety roiled through her midsection at the thought. Anxiety that would build and build and rob her of sleep the longer she waited. Maybe, she needed to get it over…

Tomorrow.

D
evlin pulled to a stop in front of the old motel, stared at the dreary row of units with the cheap, ill-fitting front doors and potholed dirt parking lot and felt his skin crawl.

He'd stubbornly stayed here too long, despite the peeling paint, the musty curtains and the black mold creeping across the bathroom ceiling, unwilling to take the next step and move into the cottage.

A move that had seemed chillingly final, somehow, as if returning to the address where he'd grown up would weld him to this town forever.

But now, he thought bitterly as he looked at the envelope on the dashboard, it was all a moot point.

He'd resigned himself to six months in the States. But one trip to the Twin Cities and one twenty-minute appointment with a harried young doctor at the VA had just changed his entire future, and there wasn't a thing he could do about it.

Not one single thing.

He slammed his palm against the steering wheel. Stared at the cockeyed number 16 drooping dead center on the motel door in front of his bumper.
What am I going to do now, God? What now?

That last explosion in Iraq had sounded the death knell on his career, and he hadn't even heard it because of the instant,
permanent
damage to his hearing that compounded what he'd suffered before. Hearing aids or not, he would never again qualify for the Force Recon team that had been his life…and his shoulder had been blown out too badly to ever manage more than basic civilian life.

Ironic, because he
had
no civilian skills, unless someone needed to keep a sniper handy or needed to mount an offensive or covert ops against a feisty neighbor.

He leaned his head against the headrest and closed his eyes against the bleak images of what his future would hold.

The Marines didn't want him, unless he chose to work as a trainer or man a desk somewhere…and after fifteen years in action neither sounded even remotely appealing.

But how was he going to start over when nothing else mattered?

 

At a loss, Dev paced his musty motel room, then changed into old jeans, running shoes and a faded Wisconsin Badgers T-shirt and went outside to run, ignoring the flare of pain in his shoulder with each stride. At the end of the block he took a right, crossed the railroad tracks and headed out into the country.

The deep valleys and rocky, towering bluffs were ablaze in ruby, molten gold and brilliant orange set against the dark pines, the air so crystalline clear that it almost hurt to breathe.

He pushed himself until his muscles burned and his lungs ached, then picked up an even faster pace when he reached the turnoff for the state park outside town.

The narrow park road wound through a forest, then up a sharp grade until opening on the highest point in the county. His heart pounding, he braced his hands on his knees and drew in deep breaths, then walked out the soreness in his muscles as he surveyed the patchwork quilt of rolling land spreading out in every direction.

Dense forest, brilliant with a kaleidoscope of rich reds and oranges and yellows. Sparkling streams and azure lakes, twinkling in the midafternoon sun. Black-and-white dairy cattle in emerald pastures with crisp white fencing and red, hip-roofed barns.

Whenever he tried to imagine heaven, he'd always come back to remembered images of the lush, pastoral beauty of western Wisconsin.

And now he was here, trapped by the stipulations of his mother's will and facing even greater circumstances that were out of his control. If he'd ever entertained the thought God might still be in his corner, it had now been proved wrong.

If he'd been just six feet farther away, he wouldn't have been so badly injured. He'd still have the career he loved. If his men had been farther away, they'd still be writing home to loved ones and complaining about
the food and joking with each other at the base, instead of lying in their graves.

Surely an all-powerful, loving God could have interceded just that much.

If He cared.

With a bitter laugh, Dev performed a couple of quick stretches, then started down the park road to head back to town at a blistering pace, wanting to feel the pain, and the endorphin high that would follow.

Reaching for one good thing in this terrible day.

 

Back in town, Dev staggered to a halt, his muscles and lungs burning. Despite the cool, crisp October air, his T-shirt clung to his back and sweat rolled off his face.

Swiping at his forehead with the back of his wrist, he looked around and realized that he'd slipped back into old childhood habits and had ended up in front of his old home.
Sloane House,
he corrected himself silently. It hadn't been his home for a long, long time.

“Now, that looks plain miserable to me.”

At the sound of Carl's familiar, crotchety voice, Dev straightened and looked over to find the old guy standing on the porch, his hands braced on the railing. His dark mood started to lift at the sight of Carl's perpetual scowl.

“Feels good,” he called. “Join me?”

“Only if I want to die.”

Dev choked back a laugh. The old codger was as cantankerous as they came. “We can't have that.”

Someone was sitting in the shadows of the porch and
now stood to join Carl at the railing. Reva, he realized, when a beam of sunlight hit her pale face.

“If you've got a minute, we could use some help,” she called out.

He glanced at his sweat-stained T-shirt and muddy running shoes. “I'll go change and be right back.”

“No need,” she said archly. “The attic isn't the cleanest place around.”

He dutifully jogged up the porch steps, then followed her and Carl up to the second floor. At the landing Carl paused to catch his breath, while Reva marched around the corner and ascended the much narrower steps leading to the attic. At the top she flipped on a switch for the three bare light bulbs hanging from the rafters.

“I have a trunk and some boxes that need to go to my room, if you don't mind. I need my fall wardrobe for an interview coming up.” She pointed them out. “While you're up here, maybe you'd like to take a look at your parents' treasures.”

Treasures. More like outdated clothing in mothballs, he guessed, but he dutifully followed her to the far wall of the cavernous attic, where stacks and stacks of boxes had been stored, along with a great deal of dusty furniture.

His childhood desk and bed. Why had his parents kept them?

The beautiful old dining-room set that had come from his grandmother Lydia's home.

A surprising number of end tables and whatnots. Sofas and overstuffed chairs, and large, mysterious pieces that loomed in the shadows.

Reva lifted an eyebrow. “Did you know this was all still up here?”

“Not a clue,” he admitted. “And I have no idea what to do with it all.”

“Well, you'll need furniture if you use the guest cottage. I don't suppose you'd want to buy anything new, since you're going back into active duty when you get done with us. Right?”

Her words slammed his thoughts back to his appointment this morning, when the doctor's casual words had changed his future in the space of fifteen seconds.

She rested a slim hand on his shoulder. “I'm sorry—did I say something wrong?”

“No.”

Her thin, softly wrinkled face furrowed with concern. “I'm afraid you aren't very convincing. I promise that we aren't as hopeless as we might seem. Every one of us
is
trying to move on.”

“It isn't that.” He shifted uneasily, hating the thought of discussing anything personal. Despising his own weakness. But the worry in her eyes deepened and he had no choice but to elaborate just to reassure her. “I…was just thinking about my appointment at the VA, is all. I can't get back into active service…quite as soon as I'd hoped.”

“Oh, dear.” Her hand fluttered at her throat. “I hope you'll be all right. If there's anything—”

“Nothing. Nothing at all.” He wheeled around and picked up her trunk, then started for the stairs.

“Wait—maybe you shouldn't be carrying that after all,” she called out as she trotted after him. “I can handle it….”

And now his life had been reduced to hearing a fiftysomething woman offer to carry a trunk because she thought he was
disabled.

He gritted his teeth against the gnawing pain in his shoulder and silently continued down the stairs to the door of the second-floor master bedroom suite, where “Reva” had been engraved on a brass doorplate.

She reached around him and pushed the door open. “Anywhere is fine.” She worried at her lower lip. “I can get the others, really.”

“It would be a sad day if I couldn't do this much,” he managed through clenched teeth. “I'm
fine.
And I'm supposed to be helping
you,
remember?”

He loped back up the stairs and brought down both boxes in one trip, settled them on her bedroom floor and dusted off his hands. “Anything else?”

“No, nothing at all,” she fretted, eyeing him with considerable worry. “I just hope this wasn't too much for you.”

Dev felt heat climb up the back of his neck. He could handle himself in combat, but fluttering, hovering women were so far beyond the scope of his experience that he was at a dead loss at how to respond.

“The boy is fine,” Carl barked. He rose from the settee under the window at the top of the stairs leading to the first floor. “Don't send him off—there's plenty to do around here. Someone needs to move my favorite chair, because it's all wrong for the TV. He can check
out the dryer vent…and there's a broken screen on the back porch. And if he's got time, I could use a ride to the shoe shop over on Willow. Sam is slow as molasses, but surely he has my oxfords resoled by now. He's had 'em for two months.”

“Carl,”
Reva snapped. “Can't you see—”

“If the boy can go out running, he isn't an invalid. Plain as day to me.” Angling a keen look at Devlin, Carl pursed his lips. “Unless he don't have time.”

“No problem.” Relieved at the opportunity to escape, Dev nodded at Reva and headed downstairs. “Just tell me what you want me to do first.”

His life was in ruins. Old people pitied him. And now he'd gone from commanding a unit of skilled marines to becoming a jack-of-all-trades—and an incompetent one, at that.

What did he know about appliances and civilian life skills—and how was he supposed to help these folks at Sloane House turn their lives around, when he couldn't even manage his own?

 

Reva, with her polite but brittle, imperious shell, was so far outside Dev's years in the military that she might as well have come from a different planet.

Cantankerous as he was, Carl was at least familiar ground. If the man had chosen the military and ended up a drill sergeant, he would have been the happiest man alive.

So far, the sofa, a settee and two upholstered chairs had nearly worn trails in the carpet while Carl dithered
and barked orders. The first half hour had been amusing. The second had become more than a little trying.

“No,” he growled. “I just wish I could do it myself. Over more to the left. No—too far. Back to the right. Just you wait—someday you'll have trifocals and a bad heart, then see if
you
can ever get things right for watching your TV.”

Carl's offhand words were harder to take than this endless exercise in furniture positioning.

Dev already had his hearing loss and bad shoulder. Was this where his life was headed? Was he going to end up growing old alone, bitter and cranky—still young enough to work but unwanted? At a point where the minute adjustment of a piece of furniture was a major issue?

The prospect darkened his mood even further, until he felt as if a heavy cloud was pressing him down into a morass of despair. He'd never understood depression. He'd always figured emotions were a choice. Now he wasn't so sure.

“Devlin.”

He blinked and shook off his thoughts.

Carl frowned at him. “You moved it too far.”

“Yes, sir.” He adjusted Carl's favorite easy chair a few millimeters to the right. “How's this?”

Carl settled into the chair. Squinted at the television. Tipped his head up and down. “That'll do,” he said. “Now, about the dryer vent. Just how much do you know about dryers?”

Only that he'd always done his laundry at the base or at a Laundromat when he traveled, and that someone
else kept the machines working. And that with anything he tackled, Carl would question his every move. “Not much.”

Carl gave him a measuring look. “I think it's the sparrows again,” he said finally.

“Sparrows?”

“Clothes won't dry. Happened before—fool birds built nests in the vent to the outside. Jammed everything up, lint and all. Vivian called a repair guy once, then later she did it herself.”

“What?” Dev tried and failed to imagine his elegant mother in coveralls, a greasy wrench in her hands. Maybe the old guy was hallucinating.

“She used a clothes hanger. Made a big hook and dragged it all out.” Carl scowled. “I'd do it myself, but I can't bend down that far, and Frank has his asthma—all that dust and lint really set him off last time. No use spending good money on a repairman if this will solve the problem and we can do it ourselves.”

At the reading of the will, Dev had imagined needing to be some sort of pseudo social worker here—which would have been a classic case of the blind leading the blind, since he had more than enough baggage of his own. These people would probably see through him in a minute, if it came to that.

At least
this
stuff was easy.

Carl grabbed a wire coat hanger from the front closet and unfolded it as they went outside, then rounded the side of the porch to the dryer vent. “Here you go. And don't step on the hostas.”